Light fixtures are used in homes and buildings to provide various forms of illumination. Some light fixtures serve both functional and aesthetic purposes, such as for illumination of work surfaces below cabinets and in cabinetry and furniture in constricted areas.
In one form, strings of low-voltage accent lights are provided as part of an under-cabinet installation kit to be used by builders or by after-market consumers. These under-cabinet lights are typically mounted to surfaces under kitchen cabinetry or recessed into shelf portions of cabinets to provide additional lighting for countertops. Such under-cabinet lights often use tracks or “raceways” that are used to mount individual lamp assemblies. Electrical wires are routed in the raceways. The lamp assemblies typically pierce the electrical wires when the lamp assemblies are mounted to the raceways.
Conventional under-cabinet lights suffer from various drawbacks. For instance, their raceways are usually made of a rigid material with a fixed orientation such as a straight line, which limits orientation of the under-cabinet lights. Since the raceways must be measured and cut to fit specific surfaces, installation of known under-cabinet lights can be time-consuming. Also, if a raceway is measured incorrectly, additional time and materials are wasted. Furthermore, if an electrical wire is pierced incorrectly when installing individual lamp assemblies on the raceway, the entire under-cabinet light may have to be replaced. Moreover, failure of a transformer supplied with some under-cabinet lights to convert 120 volts to 12 volts usually requires replacement of the entire under-cabinet light.
A modular, quick-release, under-cabinet luminaire assembly is desirable that is easily installed and serviced.